AN APPEAL TO PATRIOTS AGAINST FRAUD AND DISUNION. 



F 685 


.B96 


Copy 1 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. ANSON BURLINGAME, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Delivered in the IT. S. House of Eepresentatives, Maroli 31, 1858. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1868. 



/■•'• 






SPEECH OF MR. BURLINGAME. 



Mr. Chairman : It has been shown, 
in the great debate which we have had, 
that the people of Kansas never author- 
ized the Lecorapton Constitution ; that 
they never made it ; that they never rat- 
ified it ; that it does not reflect their 
will. It has been shown that the first 
Legislature was a fraud ; that the sec- 
ond was a fraud ; that test oaths and 
gag laws were put upon the people, 
so that they could not vote ; that then 
they were held responsible for the crimes 
of those who did ; that when they were 
persuaded to vote, they were cheated ; 
that when nobody voted, returns were 
made as if from populous regions. It 
has been shown that the honesty of the 
officei's of the Government, who tried to 
stay the hand of these frauds, was con- 
sidered an ofience by the Government. 
It has been shown that the people have 
been menaced in their property and their 
lives ; that armies were sent there to 
vote them down, or to shoot them down, 
and jvithout authority of law. It has 
appeared, that the men who did these 
things were held dear by the Govern- 
ment, and -they are its officers to-day. 
It has been shown that, through all this 
time, that devoted people has held itself 
in such an attitude as to win not only 
the respect of the people of the United 
States, but the respect of the officers of 
the Government, who have been sent, 
from time to time, to persuade or to 
subdue them to the policy of the Gov- 
ernment. 



But, Mr. Chairman, it is not my pur- 
pose here to-day to go over the history 
of Kansas affiiirs ; that has been done, 
as the gentleman from South Carolina 
[Mr. Miles] has just now well said, 
sufficiently. Every fact has been stated ; 
every principle has been argued. Day 
by day, we have urged our cause with 
all the zeal of men who know they are 
right. Every fact has been met on the 
other side, by some daring and insolent as- 
sumption ; every argument, with scornful 
sneers, which no man can answer. When 
we have offered to prove facts, the will 
of the people of the United States, as 
reflected by the Representatives upon 
this fioor^ has been baffled by parlia- 
mentary tactics. Yes, you who belong 
to the party that went behind the great 
seal of New Jersey, as my eloquent friend 
from Indiana [Mr. Colfax] very truly 
said, you who go behind the certificates 
of the Governors of Ohio and Maryland, 
when the interests of a AYhole people are 
at stake, and fraud is charged, you say 
you cannot go behind the record ; you 
say that you are estopped ; you say " it 
is so nominated in the bond; " you refuse 
to investigate, and propose speedily to 
force upon the people of Kansas a Con- 
stitution never made by them. Yes, you 
who say, with us, that the people are the 
source of power ; you, who say that power 
should flow forth from the people into 
practical government on the line of their 
desires ; you, who shouted your great 
radical rule of Democracy in the ears of 






the country — Buchanan at your" head — - 
to be this, that inasmuch as the peopie 
are sovereign, inasmuch as that sover- 
eignty cannot be alienated by them in 
such a manner that it cannot be resumed 
when the safety of the people shall re- 
quire it, therefore it is for them to deter- 
mine at what time and in what manner 
they will change their fundamental law ; 
that was your radical rule of Democracy. 
It is now pronounced Dorrism by the 
Democracy on this floor. You planted 
your rule in opposition to the rule of the 
other gre^-t school of the country, which 
rule was stated most clearly by Mr. Web- 
, ster, in the great Rhode Island case, to 
be this : He said that the will of the 
majority must govern ; that it was as 
potent as the will of the Czar of Muscovy, 
when it was legally ascertained. But 
how will you ascertain it, said he ; it 
must be ascertained by some rule pre- 
scribed by previous law. That rule, the 
fierce Democracy denounced as the rule 
of tyranny. 

Well, sir, here we have a case where 
even the requirements of that rule have 
been met by the people of Kansas. 
Their will was collected legally, by a 
legal Legislature ; and it appears that 
their will, by 10,000 majority, is against 
your Lecompton Constitution ; and yet, 
in the face of that declaration, you come 
forward as a party ; and propose to force 
that Constitution, in defiance of your 
own rule of Democracy, in defiance of 
the Federal rule, upon that people ; aye, 
sir, worse than that— you declare, through 
the lips of your boldest and ablest lead- 
er, through the lips of the distinguished 
Senator from Georgia, [Mr. Toombs,] 
through the lips of men upon this floor, 
through the lips of the gentleman who 
has but just taken his seat, if I under- 
stood him, that it involves a question of 
union or disunion. I agree with the gen- 
tleman from South Carolina, [Mr. 
Miles,] who said that we might as well 
meet this question now. I, for my part, 
am ready to meet it now. I accept the 
issue which is tendered. I accept the 
more eagerly, in the presence of this 
menace, A representative of the people 
would be craven, did he shrink from his 



duty in the presence of such a threat as 
that. What, you dissolve this Union 
because you cannot have your own wild 
will ! You dissolve this Union because 
the Lecompton Constitution, born of 
fraud and violence, is legally voted down 
in this House ! Has 'your nationality 
no better quality than that '? How will 
you do it *? Who is to do it '? Whose 
hand is ready to strike the first blow 1 
Where is your army chest ? Where 
your battalions, to cope with the people 
of this country '? You cannot do it. It 
would be wrong to do it. It w^uld not 
be legal. It would not 'be safe to do it. 
I tell you, that on the banks of the San- 
tee it would require no Federal army to 
subdue rebellion. 

The descendants of Sumter and of 
Marion, as their fathers struck down 
the Tory spirit in the brave days of old, 
would quell the spirit of rebellion to-day. 
We have heard this threat before. We 
have deemed it but the idle vaunt of idle 
men; but it comes now with an empha- 
sis and an authority that it never had 
before. We find the fire-eater giving 
his. will as the law of the great Demo- 
cratic party. He has the right to rule 
it, from his courage and his activity. 

I say it comes with new emphasis when 
the leader of the Democratic party gets 
up in the Senate of the United States, 
and with deliberation — not acting on an 
impulse — declares, and I heard him, that 
this Union is a myth ; that he has cal- 
culated its value ; that the people of 
Kentucky love it "not wisely, but too 
well;" and that this Lecompton Consti- 
tution involves the safety of the Union ; 
and when the gallant Senator from Ten- 
nessee [Mr. Bell] accepted the issue, 
when he re-stated these points, the dis- 
tinguished Senator from Georgia bowed 
his assent, and I saw him ; and no mem- 
ber of the Democratic party in the Sen- 
ate protested against that doctrine. I 
say, when such men express such senti- 
ments, the time has arrived when the 
national men of the country should unite 
toTebuke such sentiments, and vote them 
down here, and vote them down else- 
where.' These are the men, are they, to 
taunt the loyal old State of Massachu- 



setts with having legislated herself out 
of the Union, because she has declared, 
that of two given offices it is incompati- 
ble for one of her citizens to hold both 
of them? She had a right to pass such 
a law. No court has decided it to be 
unconstitutional. When the court shall 
so decide, Massachusetts, with her ac- 
customed obedience to law, will submit. 
She simply says this : "If you desire to 
' carry men ' back to old Virginia — to old 
Virginia's shore' — you must do it with 
your officers, and not mth. hers." That 
is all. But I am not here to-day to 
defend her ; I am not here to plead for 
her. She denies the jurisdiction of this 
House. She is not responsible to it for 
her local legislation. I stand here upon 
the great doctrine, which I believe in, 
that the will of the majority, constitu- 
tionally expressed, must stand^ until it 
shall be constitutionally reversed ; and, 
so far as the threat which has been made 
is concerned, I — disdaining to argue in 
its presence — stand here, before the 
people of this great country, and tram- 
ple that threat of disunion scornfully 
and defiantly down under my feet. 

Why have you brought this sectional 
question here? Why do you seek to 
force a Constitution upon a people whom 
you know abhor it ? What are you to 
gain by it ? Did n»t the gentleman from 
South Carolina [Mr. Miles] very truly 
say that it would be a barren victory — 
that it would wither in your grasp 1 And 
he said, speaking more fully in the inter- 
ests of the South than most of you, that 
he did not care now much about the pas- 
sage of the Lecompton Constitution. 
What are you to gain? Is your dogma 
that there can be property in man, borne 
in the bosom of that Constitution, rec- 
ommended b}'' such a course more warm- 
ly to the hearts of the American people ? 
Will you more easily persuade, them at 
some future time, to be more willing to 
admit States from other Territories, 
where the system may be more congenial 
to the climate? Will not the people 
say, and with truth, that this system, 
which requires such means as these to 
strengthen and sustain itself, is danger- 
ous to the peace and prosperity of the 



Republic? Will they not hate your 
system, because of your conduct in this 
case? What ! will two Senators from 
that State, who must be fugitives from 
the State that they will pretend to rep- 
resent — will that State, held down, as 
the gentleman from South Cnrolina said 
he would hold it until 18G4 — compen- 
sate for tbe ill feeling you have cre- 
ated ? Will they compensate you for 
the alienation of the people which will 
take place ? Will they compensate you 
for your partj' dismembered, broken, and 
lost ? The gentleman from South Caro- 
lina [Mr. Miles] gave us statistics of the 
last election. It is true, tliat with the 
suspicion that you would do this thing, 
we swept the North, and the East, and 
the West, with, as he says, more than 
1,300,000 votes. We swept the great 
and populous States of the country with 
the mighty ten-Avave of the people's en- 
thusiasm. We brought down the victo- 
ry into the very shadow of your malign 
system. If we did it then, what will 
now be your fate at the polls, when 
you go back to an indignant and be- 
trayed constituency? You can no longer 
say you are for Free Kansas ; ive toill nail 
you to the record. You cannot say any 
longer that you are in favor of the great 
doctrine of popular sovereignty ; ice will 
nail you to the record. You cannot say 
any longer that we are mere Freedom- 
shriekers, because there shall stand side 
by side with us the great chief of Democ- 
racy, the distinguished author of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, and he will tell 
you that you have betrayed your constit- 
uents. 

We Avill summon clouds of witnesses 
from all the winds of heaven. We will 
summon them from the South, the East, 
and the West. We shall summon the 
gallant Wise of Virginia, who desires 
that the State shall be slave, but who is 



We shall 
added 



a 



too honest to cheat the people, 
summon Walker, who has 
new empire to strengthen the South. 
We shall summon Stanton, and Forney, 
anil Bancroft, and a host of others ; and, 
above all, we shall summon those gallant 
Senators from Kentuck}' and Tennessee, 
the acts of Avhose lives for a quarter of a 



6 



century shine along the annals of their 
country. We will call upon them, and 
they will tell you you have betrayed the 
people; that you are forcing upon the 
people of Kansas a Constitution con^ 
ceived in fraud and violence. And how 
are you to meet those charges'? How 
are you to answer to a great and indignant 
people — for they will question you as 
with a tongue of fire ? They will go back 
beyond your proceedings here ; they will 
question you as to the doings and pur- 
poses of the Administration ; they will 
ask you why you did not adhere to the 
doctrine of popular sovereignty ; why, 
after you had maintained that the people 
of a Territory could exclude Slavery, you 
changed around, and said they could do 
it when they formed a State ; and why 
it is that your popular sovereignty has 
vanished away into the Hibernian sug- 
gestion of the President, that the quickest 
Avay to make Kansas a free State is first 
to make it a slave State. They will ask 
you why you have substituted the dog- 
mas of Calhoun for the doctrines of Jef- 
ferson. They will ask you how it is that 
the President of the United States, after 
having, in 1819 and 1847, held that Con- 
gress had power over the Territories, 
in 1857 expressed' his amazing surprise 
that anybody should have ever held 
that doctrine. They will desire to know 
why it is that there was a complicity 
between him and the Supreme Court of 
the United States, by which, upon yonder 
ste^s of the Capitol, he was enabled to 
foreshadow what they afterwards an- 
nounced as an opinion. They will ask 
you why it was that that court, wearing 
the ermine of a Jay, a Marshall, and a 
Story, when there was no case before 
the court calling for it, went beyond the 
line of their duty, and published politi- 
cal opinions. They will ask you why 
the army of the United States have shot 
down American citizens in the streets of 
Washington, and why it was held in 
terrorem over the people of Kansas so 
long. And they will ask you, doughfaces 
of the North, why you sat still in your 
seats, and allowed men to call your con- 
stituents, because they toiled, mud-sills 
and slaves 1 You will have to answer 



all these things. You cannot do it, and 
Ave shall beat you like a threshing-floor. 
We shall hereafter have a majority in 
this House. We shall strengthen our- 
selves in the Senate, and we are to-day 
filling all the land with the portents of 
your general doom in 1860. And I say, 
in the presence of this state of things, 
that our first duty to God and our coun- 
try is to devote ourselves to the political 
destruction of doughfaces, who say one 
thing at home, and come here to vote an- 
other ; and who fawn and trenible, and 
fall down, in the presence of the Admin- 
istration. No wonder that you. Southern 
men, call us slaves, judging us from these 
specimens of the people. But I tell you 
they do not represent the fire and flint 
of the grim and grizzly North. They are 
but our waiters on Providence, our Mac- 
sycophants ; they are our Uriah Heeps; 
they beleng with Dante's selfish men, of 
whom he said, heaven would not have 
them, and hell rejected them. I tell you, 
Southern men, I am ready to strike hands 
with fire-eaters, and exterminate the race, 
[t is becoming extinct. Look in their 
faqes for the last time ; they are fading 
awajr — fading away. Oh! for an artist 
to take their features, to transmit them 
to a curious and scornful posterity. Do 
it quickly, for tlie places which now know 
them shall soon know them no more for- 
ever. 

I think it is the first duty of republi- 
cans to extinguish the doughfaces, but 
I hold it also their duty to bear testimo- 
ny as to the manner in which the Doug- 
las men — and they will pardon me for 
giving them the name of their gallant 
and gifted leader — to bear testimony to 
the manner in which they have borne 
themselves. They have kept, the faith ; 
they have adhered to the doctrine of 
popular sovereignty ; they have voted it in 
this House, and they have not fawned and 
trembled in the presence of a dominating 
Administration — in the presence of that 
great tyranny which holds the Govern- 
ment in its thrall at Washington. They 
have given flash for flash to every indig- 
nant look ; and when a geatleman from 
Virginia, the other day, tauntingly told 
them that certain language which they 



used upon the floor of this House was 
the language of rebellion, thej' shouted 
out, tl«"ough the lips of the gentleman 
from Indiana, [Mr. Davis,] "it was the 
language of freemen." I say that it is 
due to them that we should say that they 
have borne the brunt of the battle — and 
that they, whether from New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois, 
have kept the whiteness of their souls, 
and have made a record which has lain 
in light ; and if my voice can have any 
weight with the young men of the coun- 
try where those men dwell, I should 
say to them, stand by these men with 
all 3^our young enthusiasm, stand by 
them without distinction of party ; they 
may not agree exactly with you, but 
they have stood the test here, where 
brave men falter and fall. Let them 
teach this tyrannical Administration, that 
if it is strong, that the people are stron- 
ger behind it. Thus I would speak to 
the young men of the country. I diifer 
in some points with those men, and I do 
not wish to complicate them. I pay 
also the high tribute of my admiration to 
that band of men who have been reposing 
outside of the boundaries of the great par- 
ties of the country as a patriotic corps 
of reserve, for the purpose, I suppose, of 
saving the Union when it is endangered. 
When they saw this sectional issue made, 
standing as they did in a position to look 
fairly on betAveen the parti'es, they saw who 
made it, £^nd they instantly took sides ; 
and in the language of Mr. Bell, in 
his reply to Mr. Toombs, they accepted 
the issue of disunion. They accepted it ; 
and when, sir, they saw that Lecompton 
was synonymous with "fraud, with for- 
gery, with perjury, with ballot-box stufi- 
ing," then they trampled it with their 
high manly honesty under their feet. 
They have taken it in charge to preserve 
the ballot-box pure and open to Ameri- 
can citizens. Sir, it was a proud day 
to me, when I heard the speech of the 
venerable Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. 
Crittendkn.] Themelody of his voice, 
and his patriotic accent, still sound in 
my ears. I was glad to hear him de- 
nounce fraud ; I Avas glad to hear him 
stand for the truth. As I listened, it 



seemed to me that the spirit of the Ken- 
tucky Commoner had come back again 
to visit his old place in the Senate. It 
seemed to me as if his spirit was hover- 
ing there, looking, as in days of old, 
after the interests of the Union. At 
that moment, the heart of Massachusetts 
beat responsive once again to that of 
grand old Kentucky ; and I longed to 
have the day come again, Avhen there 
should be such feelings as in the olden 
time, when the Bay State bore the name of 
Henry Clay on her banners over her hills 
and through her valleys, everywhere to 
victory, and with f«,n affection equal to 
the affection of Kentucky herself. 

I also felt proud to hear the speech of 
the distinguished Senator from Tennes- 
see, [Mr. Bell.] I was glad to hear 
their confreres on this floor, Messrs. 
Underwood of Kentucky, Gilmer of 
North Carolina, Ricaud and Harris 
of Maryland, and Davis, with his sur- 
passing eloquence, worthy of the best 
days of Pinkney and of Wirt ; and I also 
express my gratitude to Mr. Marshall 
of Kentucky, who has labored so long to 
secure this union of patriotic men. I 
owe it to these men, and to myself, to 
say that I do not agree with them on the 
subject of Slavery, and I know that they 
do not agree with me. Neither do I 
agree with the Douglas men ; I take 
Avhat I think is a higher position. I 
hold to the power of Congress over the 
Territories ; they do not. But while I 
oppose the Lecompton Constitution for 
one reason, and while the Douglas Dem- 
ocrats oppose it for another, the South 
Americans may oppose it for still an- 
other. God knows we have all cause of 
war against it, and against the Admin- 
istration. And we have come together 
here as a unit, not by any preconcert, not 
by any trade among leaders, but by the 
spontaneous convictions of our own hon- 
est minds. I trust that this may be an 
omen of what may happen in the future. 
As to what may happen, it is not for me 
to prophesy. Let time and chance de- 
termine. We come together, not in a 
spirit of compromise, because we com- 
promise nothing, but in a spirit of pa- 
triotism. And, acting in that spirit, I, 



8 



for one, am prepared to sustain the sub- 
stitute ofiered by the distinguished Sen- 
ator from Kentucky- After first voting to 
reject the bill, I will vote for that substi- 
tute, not because I would vote for it as an 
original measure ; I will vote for it be- 
cause I think that it will make Kansas 
a free State. The Administration says 
it is a slave Territory to-day — the Le- 
compton Constitution makes it a slave 
State. I feel that the Lecompton Con- 
stitution, without this substitute, would 
pass in its naked form, and that Kansas 
would be a slave State under it ; and if 
I forego this opportunity to make it a 
free State, the opportunity will be lost 
forever. And how could I meet my con- 
stituents, and say that, because I desired 
to appear consistent, I would not vote 
for that substitute', and give the people 
of Kansas one more chance for Freedom. 
If there were only one chance in a hun- 
di'ed, I would do it. But it is not a 
chance ; it is a certainty. Doughfaces 
will undoubtedly feel very sad about my 
vote, and complain that I am not con- 
sistent. That word " consistency " is a 
coward's word. It is the refuge of self- 
ishness and timidity. I will do right 
"to-day, and let yesterday take care of 
itself. That Avord "consistency" is 
what has lured many a noble man to 
ruin. It has stopped all generous re- 
form. When I am ready to adopt it, 
and to depart from practicability, I will 
join the immovable civilization of China, 
and take the false doctrines of Confucius 
for ray guide, with their backward-look- 
ing thoughts. 

These are my reasons, these are the 
reasons that animate my associates 
among the Republicans. And I tell 
you, the common enemj^, fairljj and 
openly, that our cause is just and our 
union is perfect. We Republicans 
will place to-morrow our united vote 
upon the record in favor of the substi- 
tute. Our great chieftain here, [Mr. 
GiJDDiNGS,] with his white hairs, who 
has stood for twenty years the great 




champion of t ^^^BRftRY OF CONGRESS 

anection to 
termination 
thought. At 
pies required 

ing the impul "q QlS 087 982 8 

otic and not icmabiuai nearr, ne pomts 
the way of duty and victory. The 
member from South Carolina, [Mr. 
Miles,] if he knew him better, would 
find his heart to be a loving one ; and I 
will tell that member that his interests 
and the interests of South Carolina are 
safer to-day in the hands of that good 
old man, than they are in the hands of 
the most malignant of doughfaces. 1 
say our union is perfect. We will put 
our votes on record, to-morrow in favor 
of the substitute, not as a choice of evils, 
but because it is the good thing to do.;.. 
it is the only thing for honest men to- 
do, if we wish to have Kansas a free 
State. 

Mr. Chairman, a great many thoughts 
suggest themselves to my mind, to which 
I would like to give utterance. I am 
told that my time is about to expire, and 
therefore will not prolong my remarks 
to greater length. I say, for our party, 
that we are ready. We seek no post- 
ponement of the question. All that men 
could, do we have done. We have argued 
the question ; we have implored ; we have 
voted ; we have done evei*y thing to se- 
cure our triumph ; we have been bafiled 
by pai-liamentary tactics ; we have been 
sometimes betrayed. The President has 
given way ; the Senate l>as given way ; 
but, tbank God, the tribunes of the people, 
standing here in this House, have not yet 
betrayed their trust. They stand firm, 
and my high hope is — I do not know 
why, looking to our past conflicts here, 
I should have it — that on the great to- 
morrow, when the sun shall sink behind 
the hills of your own loved Virginia, 
this Lecompton Constitution will be de- 
feated ; Kansas will be saved, and the 
whole country repose in good will, and 
peace dwell in all our borders. 



